Making it as a comedian: Your six month checklist

Being a comedian is hard. Probably harder than being a brain surgeon. A brain surgeon has to operate on just one brain at a time with pointy tools, often with much blood. As a comedian, you have to interact with lots of people's brains all at once only using your words and with marginally less blood everywhere. You don't need to tell me who got the easy gig!

            What a hack.

However, unlike brain surgery or rocket science (substitute blood for oil/rocket fuel), comedy is a skill that can be picked up by anyone and mastered well within a year. If you've been gigging for the past while, here's your checklist for six months in comedy. Not ticked one of these off? Then you're not doing it right!

1. One Man Show

As discussed before, it's important to have a one man show under your belt. Most people think that this is an hour's worth of your own original and best material, presented in a cogent and coherent manner, perhaps with an underlying theme and with suitable closure for the audience.

In reality, there's many ways around this truck load of hard work. Get three of your friends to take part. Have two as ten minute support acts and the other as an MC. Roll out the same old material for the last 15-20 minutes, plus anything else off the top of your head and there you go! There's your hour show!

N.B. Remember to plug your show continuously for months on Facebook, to the point where it becomes some sort of visual background noise, always accompanying it with "Hurry! Just a few tickets left!" etc. In the few days leading up to it, give plenty of complimentary tickets out to your family and friends, then announce the show as "Sold Out". Don't forget to get your "journalist" mate to write a "review" dripping in nepotism for the local rag and reimburse him for it. About two pints should do it.

2. Gig Runner

Being on stage at other people's comedy nights isn't enough! You've been doing comedy for what seems like five minutes and lack enough usable material to comfortably fill an awkward silence in an elevator - it's time to expand your horizons! Seek out venues that don't have comedy on. Particularly venues that have zero interest in promoting it (this ensures you have full creative control of your night). Rooms with more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel along with plenty of pillars in the way of the stage are perfect. This means that the laughs will bounce around the room more than a traditionally shaped room, ensuring that people have an even better time than those comedy nights where people can see and hear the comedian clearly.

Once you set up one comedy night, set up another six. Ensure maximum success by purposely scheduling them to clash with other clubs, because as we all know, comedy's a big enough racket these days to intentionally split the laugh-hungry audience on a single night.

3. Comedy Crackerjack

Now that you have your comedy empire (which preferably uses your own face as the logo) you will need comedian minions to fill the line up each night. Already established comics in the circuit probably won't be too keen on performing at your nights due to extreme jealousy, so it's time to recruit and train up your own Gag Army.

Advertise free "How To Become a Comedian" classes, preferably to attract naive and impressionable people. Teach them everything you know about comedy. Later in the day, after lunch, put on a showcase gig in front of their friends and family. At the same time, plug your other gigs you have going on, placing most of your new comics in the line up. Bingo! You have full line ups and crowds packed with the newbie performers' friends and family who have been blackmailed into attending out of politeness. When the newbie performers no longer draw an easy crowd, get rid of them and recruit different comics. Repeat this process over and over when needed, right up until the comedy scene is watered down enough to flush right down the toilet.

There you are! If you haven't completed these steps in six months, unfortunately you won't become a fully-fledged comic. Not to worry though, you can still foist your borderline autistic slobberings into the comedy scene; submit badly-written comedy reviews to free magazines, record a four hour long "humour" podcast or write a blog on how to teach comedy.

One Man Show

At some point a comedian will have the opportunity to stage a one man show. This could be at The Edinburgh Fringe, a local festival or every few months at a night they have a hand in running, just because. It is useful to have a one man show under your belt, as it looks good on paper to yourself and the festival organisers who are chasing eventual funding (of which you will see precisely none of).

There are a few different ways to approach putting on a show of your own.

1. Pick n Mix - There is an established “headline” act, the title of the evening is that of the headliner’s show, however, there are two or more other “support” acts on before him. This is often to allow someone who hasn’t got an awful lot of experience to later say that they’ve done “a festival” or taken part in it, neglecting to mention they were actually a support act and squandered a twenty minute spot when they can just about fill five competently. The headline act can then usually do well under an hour of his own stuff and hope that the audience doesn’t notice that it isn’t actually a “show” after all, more of a gig with his mates, regardless of whether or not they compliment each other’s styles.

2. Free For All - This approach is at least more honest than the above one. A group of comics come together to put a show on. Usually performing 20-30 minutes each throughout the evening. Again, a credit is taken for doing the festival and also neglecting to mention that they did a bog-standard performance of material you would have seen anywhere else they perform anyway, calling into question why they bothered even doing it in the first place beyond satisfying their own selfdom.

3. "Serious Art" - Billing your show as “Theatre / Experimental / Niche / Etc” gives you a large advantage at a cost. The downside is that you can’t say you had a “comedy show”.  The advantage being that you will attract the type of crowd that approaches everything ever so earnestly - it’s unlikely that they will offer any sort of direct criticism, because as an art/theatre show, it’s up to "each person’s perspective". Thus your show will rarely be described as “unfunny”, because it’s art. As a result, very little effort needs to be applied in this format. Throw in a poem, song or interpretive dance somewhere during the hour and you’re set. More people will promote and discuss your show because it wasn’t billed as a comedy show, yet it made em laugh! Thus it’s much better than any actual comedy show!

Once you’ve decided on your format, all that you need is a show name, your blurb and a photo. The show’s name should reflect what sort of material or themes you may be touching on, but that doesn’t necessarily apply here. Any old thing will do. It doesn’t really need to make a lot of sense, because chances are you haven’t worked awfully hard on constructing a cogent theme throughout anyway.

Example of a bad poster

Much of your comedian’s blurb can do for the show’s blurb, as it’s (mostly) you they’re coming to see. Make sure to turn up the bullshit factor to 11 though, as you’re probably competing with other comics around the same time. Paraphrase quotes from newspapers about gigs you’ve done, even if it’s a quote you originally gave them about yourself at one point. Use the same techniques you used coming up with your original blurb. The more hyperbole the better, usually.

For your show’s photo/poster, try to find either the tackiest, nausea-inducing font/colour combination you can get, or the shoddiest, MS Paint style production values and share them everywhere. If possible, make it a chore to figure out what’s going on in the flyer, so punters actually feel obligated to go to it because they spent around a minute and a half figuring out why your face is on a poster.

And there we have it! A sure-fire guide to setting up your one man show! Always remember to promise more than you can deliver and MAKE ‘EM LAUGH!